CHAPTER SEVEN

THE GREEN NET

River lifted up the handbrake on the console as TARDIS engines became silent. Clara raced out through the TARDIS doors and realised they were in the same room they left. "Wait a second," Clara looked at the top of the wooden doors where the small sign hung, the same sign she'd seen earlier: Reading Room 21.56, Song Tower. Clara turned around as River closed the police box doors behind her. "Song Tower," Clara whispered, "it was you, wasn't it?"

River smiled, "You have to admit, it was a nice touch. Once he deciphered the code, it gave me immediate access to control the TARDIS's flight destination. I gave it the directions to land on the twenty-first level of the building named after me. Thought he'd get the idea, but he can never work out the simplest things even when they're staring him right in the face." Clara shook her head, with a small grin, "He's so clever but when someone else is more interesting, he misses the obvious." River watched Clara, finally realising why he had her as his companion, "I can see why he chose you, Clara."

Clara looked up, confused by what River has said, "He called me his Impossible Girl." River's eyes widened, "Slap him. If anything, he's your Impossible Doctor."

"'Clara Oswald, the only mystery worth solving. My Impossible Girl'," Clara said, echoing the words the Doctor had spoken months ago, "why did he choose me then?" River walked over to a nearby table and sat on the edge. "You figured it out, Clara. You figured out the connection of the room to me," River replied, "he may be a Time Lord but you figured out the message sent to him by his wife."

Clara stood there awkwardly, looking everywhere around the room, "well, thank you for noticing." River stood back to her feet, "He does notice you, Clara, even if he's not looking. You're not just a rebound companion who is filling in because he's lonely. He chose you not just for company but because of your cleverness. You're the force that keeps him grounded. You're the reason he keeps travelling. I like to think he think he's the companion. What the point in travelling time and space if you can't share it with someone else?"

"Thank you, River," beamed Clara, her chin quivering slightly. River smiled happily, and clapped her hands, "Now, aren't you wondering why I brought you here?"

River pulled out a thin, black tablet from within her white dress. "How-" gasped Clara, mind-boggled at the fact there was somehow a large invisible pocket in River's dress, "how did you fit that in there?"

"Bigger on the inside, love."

Clara laughed slightly, watching River fiddle with the tablet. "Snagged this off the Doctor while he was disorientated in the lobby downstairs earlier. He's such an easy pickpocket," River winked, pulling out a small memory stick too. Clara laughed again as River plugged the USB into the tablet.

"Come look."

Clara walked over to River and glanced at the screen. It was white, however there was no text on the screen. "I don't get it. What am I suppose to be looking at?" Clara asked. "The biography of my father, Clara," River replied.

"But there's nothing there."

"Exactly," River started, "all of the books in this room and in the entire Library are empty. Something or someone is absorbing all the information of the Library from the computer core. I've been trying to access it but all I get is black-and-white snow."

"Like on a television with no reception?"

"Precisely, so if every book on the planet has vanished, that could be potentially dangerous."

"Knowledge is power," Clara whispered, remembering when the Doctor and her first arrived on the planet, "that's a hell of a lot of information to steal, isn't it?"

"Information on everything that ever happened in the universe, anything that is or was recorded. That's sounds like a recipe for starting a war. We need to tell the Doctor.

There was crack of thunder outside, making both Clara and River jump.

"Meet me in the lobby," River ordered and within seconds vanished, leaving Clara was left alone in the reading room. Walking briskly through the hall and out past the wooden doors, she hurried down the corridor. It was strangely darker than it was before and it wasn't until Clara glanced out the glass windows that she realised why. The sun had turned a strange orange colour, reducing the brightness dramatically. It was like it had gone from midday to dusk.

And then Clara saw it.

Hundreds of thin, green beams of light snaked across the sky, each one parallel to each other, bending across the surface of the Library and heading north towards the horizon. Meanwhile, another hundred or so beams of lights stretched from the eastern side of the sky, heading west. The entire atmosphere of the planet had now been covered in an electrical net of green laser beams, crisscrossing over one another to create a square pattern across the sky. The Planetary Lockdown has begun, Clara thought, the Shadow Proclamation is here, sealing the planet off with a force field.

Clara hurried down to the elevators and repeated clicked the 'Down' button. A minute passed and the metallic doors in front of her finally slid open. Rushing into the mirror-filled box, she pressed the lobby button continuously and when the doors slid shut, the elevator began its slow descent down. After a minute passed, the elevator doors creaked opened and Clara stepped out to find the Atrium empty, and the Doctor unconscious in the middle of the room. River was kneeling over him with a small electronic device pressed against his chest.

Without realising, Clara found herself running around the lobby and falling to her knees when she reached River and the Doctor. "What happened?" Clara demanded, grabbing the Time Lord's wrist and holding it with three fingers, two on top and one underneath. "I don't know. I got here and he was lying on the ground," River croaked, clicking buttons on the device in her hands. Clara pressed on the Doctor's wrist and felt a faint pulse. She then pressed her hand on the left side of his chest. Thump thump.

There was another crack of thunder and River looked up through the glass dome to see the green net hanging in the sky above. "Force field. The Shadow Proclamation kind," River whispered, shaking her head in anger. Clara moved her hand to the right side and felt nothing, "One of his hearts have stopped."

A small smirk appeared on River's face, "I'm sorry, sweetie. But it's why they call it tough love." River turned her hand into a fist and slammed the side of it on the right side of his chest. The Doctor groaned loudly, his eyes flickering open, "Wha – where … Where is he?!"

"The room's empty, love. He's gone."

He looked at River and then noticed above her head the thin, green force field in the atmosphere of the Library. The Doctor sat up and slowly got to his feet, still looking at the green beams of light crisscrossing in the darkened sky, "We have a problem, I assume."

"A rather big one, sweetie."

The Doctor turned to River, "That's the Green Net of the Shadow Proclamation, River," his voice got louder as he went on, "why is the Shadow Proclamation here?"

"Sweetie, keep your voice down or they'll find us quicker."

"Find us, hey? Find you is what you mean, right? What have you done now to tick off the Proclamation?"

Clara interjected, "Doctor, shut up and listen."

The Doctor turned to Clara, slightly offended. "It's you they want," Clara continued, "they don't want River. In fact, they don't know she's here."

"And why would they want me?" the Doctor whispered, looking back at River's worried face. Clara couldn't stop herself and blurted out the truth, "Because we went to the Shadow Proclamation, asking for help to try and capture the Nightmare Child, but River downloaded the new database update too late and realised that the Nightmare Child had moved down to Number Two on the Most Wanted List."

There was silence. After a few seconds, the Doctor opened his mouth, "and the first is –"

"You," River cut him off, gulping anxiously.

There was more silence.

"It would have been unavoidable," the Doctor finally said.

"I'm sorry?" Clara replied.

"It would have been unavoidable because I was going to message the Shadow Proclamation just after you went off, Clara," explained the Doctor, "but I got into a pickle with the Child. He obviously saw the Green Net through the glass dome and stunned me. I assume he's gone to speed up the process of new Librarian army."

"But there's something else, Doctor," Clara said.

"Mm?" the Doctor looked to Clara. She nodded to River.

"I got you both into this mess. I called you. I sent the message to Clara's phone that bought you both here," River began, "every book on the planet has gone."

"What do you mean 'gone'?" the Doctor laughed, shaking his head in amusement, "this is the world's biggest library!" River tilted her hand in frustration and continued, "Every single piece of information has vanished from the computer core. It's all gone, without a single trace."

The Doctor suddenly became quiet and stared into space. "Doctor?" interrupted Clara, snapping her fingers in front of his face. "The one thing that links these two things together," he whispered.

"Pardon?" River said, with confusion in her voice.

"Oh, but THAT'S IT!" cried the Doctor, jumping backwards with his hands on his head, "of course!"

"Hey, HEY!" exclaimed Clara, pointing at both River and herself, "explain please!" The new lines on the Doctor's new face deepened as he realised what was going on, "The Nightmare Child suddenly appears in the biggest library in the universe out of thin air and all the information contained within the computer data core vanishes – putting it together is like a –"

"Transfer," Clara answered, looking between River and the Doctor.

"Exactly!"

"But where did the Nightmare Child come from, and where's all the information?" asked River.

"I noticed something earlier. I didn't understand why it was there and when I asked the Child about it, he had no idea."

The Doctor walked over the Concierge Desk and spun one of the computers around to face River and Clara. The screen was full of snow.

"But that's just black-and-white spots on a computer screen," Clara responded, puzzled.

"I saw something different on it earlier," the Doctor said.

"What did you see?" River asked with her eyebrows raised in curiosity.

"A Crack."

Suddenly all the television screens around the Atrium switched on, all of them covered in snow. However, within the snow, was a gigantic noticeable Crack.

"Whoa!" River gasped.

"Seems like someone's listening," the Doctor said loudly, looking around the room as his taunting voice echoed throughout the lobby, "come out, come out, wherever you are!"

"But – but that was on Trenzalore," Clara stuttered, pointing at the nearest monitor to her. "The exploding TARDIS," the Doctor explained, "the twenty-sixth of June, 2010. The day the universe blew up."

"But you closed them. You flew the Pandorica into the explosion and rebooted the universe," cried River, shaking her head repeated, "oh no."

"River, what's wrong?" the Doctor called, walking back over to her.

River was looking at her arms, which slowly began to pixilate. "River, stay calm and breathe. What's happening?"

River turned to the Doctor and whispered, "Save me."

"RIVER!" the Doctor screamed.

Within seconds, River vanished into nothing.

The Doctor remained silent and still, his hand holding the air where River's hand once was.

Suddenly, the loud voice of the Shadow Architect boomed across the city outside, "The Doctor is detected. Location: Song Tower. Lockdown the building."